William McKenzie (Australian politician)

William George Alexander McKenzie OBE (3 December 1883 – 4 February 1969) was an Australian politician.

He was born in Woodend to hotel-keeper Henry Daniel McKenzie and Elizabeth Perry. He served in the Second Boer War and worked as a clerk for a state coal mine in Wonthaggi. On 23 June 1914 he married Mary Germaine McDonald, with whom he had three children. From around 1922 he kept a store at Wonthaggi, and also invested in gold. He served on Wonthaggi Borough Council from 1924 to 1952, and was also founding president of the Woodend branch of the Australian Labor Party. In 1927 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Wonthaggi. He was briefly Minister of Agriculture and Mines in 1943, and resumed the portfolio from 1945 to 1947. McKenzie was defeated in 1947, and was subsequently a member of the Council of Adult Education; he was also appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He died at Oakleigh in 1969.^[1]

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